Access to Higher Education and Support for Meritocracy: Effort, Skill, and Education as Components of Merit

Prior research has emphasized perceptions of effort-based meritocracy (i.e., the descriptive belief that hard work leads to success), noting a rising trend in meritocratic beliefs across countries. The current study proposes focusing on three components of merit—effort, skill, and education — and on a less-examined form of meritocratic beliefs: support for meritocracy (i.e., the prescriptive belief that society should distribute rewards based on merit). Analyzing the 2009 International Social Survey Programme data, this study demonstrates the role of higher education in shaping heterogeneity in support for meritocracy. College-educated individuals seem to reject effort-based meritocracy while strongly supporting skill- and education-based meritocracy. In addition, the gap between the college-educated and the non-college-educated in supporting education-based meritocracy is larger in countries with broader access to higher education. These findings suggest that people may refer to different dimensions of meritocracy when supporting or disapproving “meritocracy,” calling for refined policy interventions to reduce social inequalities.